


you're all cold

by tosca1390



Category: Once Upon a Time (2011)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-25
Updated: 2011-11-25
Packaged: 2017-10-26 13:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/283454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tosca1390/pseuds/tosca1390
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You do have that princess aura about you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're all cold

**Author's Note:**

> Pure cracky future speculation and what-have-you, based off a prompt received.

*

“And this is supposed to be where?” he asks from behind her. Each word is elongated, drawn out to be its most annoying, and yet Emma finds herself irrationally attracted to him.

 _It’s the accent, it’s just the accent_ , she thinks as she stuffs her hands in her jacket pockets, walking through the decrepit stone structure. It is nothing but a roofless shell of stone and granite, but Henry, always Henry –

“A castle. My castle, actually,” she says at last, toeing her boot into the snowy floor.

“Ah. Of course. You do have that princess aura about you.”

She glares at him from over her shoulder. Flurries fall between them, the sky a vast grey expanse peeking through the bare tree tops. It is pretty here, she has to admit. When she was younger, shuttled from foster home to orphanage and back, she would dream of forests and open spaces quite like this.

Castles were asking a little much for a kid like herself, but she wouldn’t have turned it down.

“I’d be a great princess, thank you very much,” she mutters into her shoulder, walking around. Her boots clack against the uneven stone floor. “And no one asked you to tag along.”

“Actually, you’re wrong there. I’ll let you take a moment to deal with that rarity,” he says with a smile. His beard is thicker than when she first arrived; the advent of winter, she imagines. She wonders how that damn apple tree of the Mayor’s is faring.

“Shut up,” she says finally.

He laughs. The low husky sound catches her right in the gut. “Henry asked me to come with you.”

 _Of course he did_ , she thinks with a sigh. “Great. How thoughtful.”

“If you were here alone, and you slipped and fell, what would happen then?” he asks in that police-officer-tone that she’s grown to loathe over the years, no matter how attractive the officer talking is.

Emma shakes her hair back from her shoulders, shivering as a stiff breeze brushes past her. The tips of her fingers and her nose are nearly numb. She wasn’t supposed to be here this long. Her wardrobe is completely inappropriate, as much as she loves her red leather jacket. “Someone would find me,” she mutters.

“Yeah. Most likely me, finding your cold frozen body. Imagine how quiet you’d be.”

“Is this your idea of a good time? Because, really, you’re bringing me down,” she says, rolling her eyes.

Suddenly he is close to her, his chest at her back. His hands are at her shoulders, laying his thick coat across her. “You don’t think I’m charming?”

She turns to face him, eyebrows raised. His hair falls across his brow, curling at the edges. She has a strange urge to touch it, but she doesn’t want to get handcuffed. Again. His hands remain at her shoulders. The air thickens and warms between them, snow catching at her eyelashes. There’s a muscle memory curling through her, her mouth parting instinctively.

“Charming isn’t the first word to come to mind, no,” she says at last.

His fingers curl at her arms. She can feel the warmth of his breath on her skin. In the decaying and crumbling arches of what Henry says is a castle and what common sense says is just an old building, she feels at sea and set apart from the real world she’s been trying to crawl back to. Something keeps her here in this strange place, whether it’s Henry and his well-being, or the mystery surrounding the two people he says are her parents, or the sheriff, always on Henry’s side and always somewhat behind, she thinks.

“Who does Henry think you are?” she asks after a moment.

Graham’s mouth turns down just faintly, his head bowing towards hers. “He hasn’t said, actually.”

She swallows hard, biting the inside of her cheek. “What, do you feel left out?” she grits out through her teeth at last, a weak attempt.

He wets his lips, skin flushed at the collar of his dark uniform shirt. “Do you?” he challenges.

“I’m anything but left out from these shenanigans, buddy,” she murmurs, stepping back from him. His coat is warm at her shoulders and back, and smells spicy and faintly of hay and woods.

He watches her with dark heavy eyes, seemingly unperturbed by the cold. “Shenanigans?” he repeats after a quiet moment of just the wind whistling between the branches.

“Shut up,” she mutters, turning away and walking deeper into the stone ruins. Her fingers curl into the soft lining of his coat, tugging it close around her. She walks around for what seems like hours, with him at her heels, pointing out the various stone workings like the secret geek she pegged him for, and making the worst jokes she’s ever heard from a man. Really, she thinks he can’t get worse, and then.

It’s later, at Mary Margaret’s home with cocoa and Bailey’s, that Emma thinks of him in something other than a uniform. She wonders how he would look in a prince’s outfit, standing in the wide sweep of a ballroom, waiting for –

She shuts Henry’s book and closes her fingers into fists, leaning back against the couch. _In too deep_ , she thinks, her blood beating a strange tattoo at the pulse in her throat. _You’re in too deep_.

*


End file.
